Wednesday, January 23, 2013

The New York Bus Drivers Union Has Been Scamming Taxpayers for Years

It's unbelievable what's going on, though you can see why the bus drivers have decided to leave kids, even disabled kids, stranded, possibly for months. It's a very lucrative gig they are in danger of losing with competitive bidding. It costs the city $40 per day to ferry each kid to and from school. Isn't public transportation supposed to be much cheaper than say, taking a cab two and from school every day, and not more expensive? Check this out from John Podhoretz:

This strike is going to go on for a long time. The only card the drivers have to play is the inconvenience card. They're looking to make life so unpleasant that parents rise up and demand the city cave in....The drivers have to do this because the strike itself is a desperation ploy. They don't have a legal leg to stand on. Three court decisions in the past two years have made it clear the goal of their action — preserving certain "employee protection provisions" amounting to lifetime job security — is illegal.

These workers aren't city employees. They work for private companies. The city's contracts with those companies are up in June. The city plans to bid out the work.

It has to. You want it to. Trust me: Under the terms of the current contracts, providing this bus service costs — I hope you're sitting down before you read this next clause — $7,000 a year per passenger. That's seven grand per kid.

I have two children who ride a city school bus. If the city simply gave me the $14,000 it's paying for the two of them, I could afford to have them chauffeured to and from school every day.In a Bentley.

All in all, the city spends — again, are you sitting down? — $1.1 billion on school busing.

The ruinously expensive contracts governing the city's schoolbus system date back to a 1979 strike, which followed the city's attempt to create competitive bidding and lower the city's costs.